Helen O., Grand Central, 1959
She found a spot near the wall and waited for the 8:17. In that moment, after the minute hand ticked, there was a crazy kind of silence, tin-thin echoes bouncing off the dome. And in that moment, she watched—she always did—as the other tiny ladies backed themselves flat against the wall, clutches clutched in narrow-knuckled fingers and pressed tight and safe to their cashmere-soft rib cages in an “Oh — oh, dear!” Helen tapped her watch, looked at the clock, clicked her shoes and muttered, almost whispered to them—very lady-like and with a head-shake—“Oh, I know, I know, and I—I so wish…didn't have to be here now…this time…they all come…you know…the way they do,” before closed-lip smiling and wincing her way into the center of the terminal just in time for their slow stampede. First, the hats appeared at the top of the stairs, felt fedoras tipped just so or so low they dipped into their eyes, and after that came their blank, unsmiling faces - none of which she gave special attention - and then, and then, and then, their full, oncoming mass, a shoulder-to-shoulder-to-shoulder herd of concentrated power and unstoppable virile energy moving toward her with such cold, steady force that the hot spider-flush crept up around her throat. She gripped her purse handles until her palms and fingers hurt with bruises, until the bulk of them opened up and swirled around her, her stammered pardons and excuse mes and breathy, elated “Brutes!” mingling with the light cascade of their fresh aftershave the way it always did, pressed suit sleeves feather-kissing the skin of her bare arms while she pretended to look for a man.
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Author's Note
This story, in slightly different form, appears in the 6S issue, "Mind Games." (Sold on Amazon)
Other stories by Kristen Tsetsi
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Kristen, I've read this four times now. I have no idea what I think about this story. But I know how it feels reading. I think I'll read it again.
David - think of it not as a beginning, middle, end "story," but as a slice-of-life piece.
Loved it. Reminds me of ... Buffaloes and Old Lace, a screenplay written for Helen Hayes, who is rumored to have laughed for weeks after reading it. No one has openly speculated upon who the author might have been ... but I digress and wonder, now, just where that came from.
"First, the hats appeared at the top of the stairs, felt fedoras tipped just so or so low they dipped into their eyes, and after that came their blank, unsmiling faces - none of which she gave special attention - and then, and then, and then, their full, oncoming mass, a shoulder-to-shoulder-to-shoulder herd of concentrated power and unstoppable virile energy moving toward her with such cold, steady force that the hot spider-flush crept up around her throat."
You make it unfold in time. Wonderful work, Kristen!
*
@James - Thank you. And that would make an interesting story, a speculative piece about how that screenplay might have come to be, and how it was delivered, and why.
@Bill - thank you!
Write it ... if you want. I have many more than I could ever get to anyway.
My wife does paintings and makes up bios for some of the people in Grand Central. See www.sherrykarver.com.
Jerry - oh my god, I love them! The bios on the people (or in some cases animals) are incredible. What a fun and cool idea.
I see a story here, even in this small scene. There is such great character revelation and the beginning and future of this woman's life is known by just this small vignette of it. Nice.
a gorgeous burst. A firework. fav.
jeez we're getting some good work on this site. What I particularly like with this is the surety with which you embed the muttered, whispered soliloquays into the narrative block, with the dashes, the ellipses. All that works so well. It's complicated, but necessarily so to convey the complicated texture of a mind in a moment of somewhat confusion. Your style here is, might I say, almost Henry Jamesian in its punctuated sinuousness. Not many write that way these days, which is partly why I found it refreshing.
Oh, wow. Lots of stuff going on here. Great use of language, too. Star.
I get a powerful sense of repressed sexuality in both the character and the time/place. Wonderful piece of writing. Fave.
I really like this piece, but I love that last sentence most of all. A fav for “pressed suit sleeves feather-kissing the skin of her bare arms while she pretended to look for a man.”
@ Susan and Meg - thank you!
@ eamon - My goodness, thank you.
@Jack, Kim, and Kari - thank you for reading and for your comments.
This is absolutely wonderful. Your command of language is tight and thoughtful, and keeps in time with the pacing of the scene in a way that seems really hard for most of us to do well. Reminds me a bit of the opening of "Franny and Zooey" (Salinger), but also of some Agatha Christie -- in the best way, how she captured the fluttery, threatened feeling of old ladies in some of her stories. That's my favorite part of this piece: "...narrow-knuckled fingers and pressed tight and safe to their cashmere-soft rib cages in an “Oh — oh, dear!" Fabulous!
Kristen,
What a wonderfully set up time-piece. I'm going to read it again. Fav!
Thanks, Antonia and Matt. :)
...but of course she didn't find him (the man). this = very excellent. the crescendo vs diminuendo is extremely wonderful. i am new to this site & hope to read more of yours. thanks for this - made me ))))))))))